


a love like that

by insunshine



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-01
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at how Tim and Lyla's lives are intertwined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a love like that

Tim isn’t a complicated guy.

 

He knows that there isn’t much room to be. He knows that Texans have a reputation, and that his is as black as they come.

 

He knows that he doesn’t go to church anymore because he doesn’t believe in the god that Preacher Dan talks about, even though he does believe in one.

 

He knows that in order to stay uncomplicated (which is how he likes it, really) he has to break things up and put them into the filing system of drawers that he has in his head. He knows that if he doesn’t think of something for long enough it’ll go away.

 

Mostly he knows that if he doesn’t wake up every morning and play football, he’ll go stir crazy. It’s the same with Lyla; Lyla, who is different. 

 

Lyla is different, and he knows it. 

 

Lyla is sweetness and light and all of the hope in the entire world lives in her eyes. She is good and pure, and there is nothing about her that he doesn’t love, even though he doesn’t know how to say that without sounding like an ass.

 

Right before his daddy left, when he was 13 and just becoming a man, when Tyra Collette started looking at him with those eyes and that mouth, and when she started dragging him behind anything with a door (and sometimes things without one), and when the world seemed like it could be Okay, because he was fast and strong, and he could play better than Billy, _dammit_ , better than his dad even, Lyla seemed to know that something was wrong.

 

She wasn’t there when he left, but he was generally up at all hours, running around the neighborhood, counting his breathing and his paces, and just how many seconds it took him to get from Jenny Bradley’s mailbox to the end of the street and back. She was there when he got back though, and somehow she knew that his dad was leaving (had left already) and that his Ma was sick, and so when he got back, and his shirt was drenched from the inside out, and his face was a mess because he’d tripped over his own feet on the asphalt, he saw her, pristine and lily white, sitting on his porch as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

 

 _What’re you doing here, Garrity?_ He’d asked, because the sun hadn’t even risen yet, not really, even though it had to be past 5 and his Daddy’s truck was already gone from the yard.

 

 _I brought you all some sandwiches;_ she’d replied back, as if it were the commonest thing in the world for her to be sitting on his dirty and half broken front porch, her long black hair hanging in braids around her shoulders.

 

 _We don’t need your charity, Lyla;_ he’d muttered as he stepped past her, his leg accidentally brushing the skin of her arm, and sending a whole flock goose bumps through him.

 

 _Isn’t good then, Tim;_ she’d replied, craning her head just the littlest inch over her shoulder to look at him. _Isn’t it good that you don’t have it?_

 

Even back then, even back then when she barely reached his chest standing at her full height (he’d had an awkward growth spurt the month before, and he was always banging his head and arms and legs all over the place because he just didn’t know where to _put_ them), and her eyes were light, and there was a whole expanse of future right there in front of her, even then, he loved her.

 

So, it’s not like he doesn’t _get it_. It’s not like he didn’t know that she belonged to Street, even all the way back then. It’s not like he was blind or something, he _knew_ , just as well as anybody else, just as well as those girls who sighed behind their hands and wished for a love like that. 

 

But when she kisses him-and she does kiss him, he kisses her back. Because he loves her; he’s loved her for his entire god-forsaken life, and he’s never wanted anything or anyone more.

 

He knew Street would find out, just like he knew that Lyla didn’t really want him, but he wanted her, so for a while, it was alright, and he could lose himself in her. It didn’t really matter (it mattered so much, he could barely breathe from it) that he could feel her tears on his chest afterwards.

 

He’s surprised then (but he doesn’t show it), when she’s standing in front of him now, and she’s smiling, and tilting her head to the side in that Lyla way of hers that he loves, and asking him how he’s been.

 

Like it’s that easy.

 

She’s gone a second later, and she doesn’t look at him over her shoulder this time, but he stays there, stays in the hallway long after the bell has rung, long after he stopped being able to see her, remembering the easy sweetness he’d seen in her eyes, and realizing how long it’s been missing from them.

 

He tells Street that he can’t imagine her loving anyone but him. That whatever happened between them (he doesn’t call it a mistake like she did (to him it isn’t), but the implication hangs heavy in the air) is over, and has been, and that he and Tyra are back on anyway (even though it’s a lie, and she’s _still_ not talking to him).

 

 _How could you do it then, man, if she meant so little to you?_ Jason asks, and Tim doesn’t answer him, because he can’t. He can’t tell him about the whole theory in his brain about filing cabinets and compartmentalizing and loving Lyla so much that it hurts.

 

He can’t, and he won’t, so he doesn’t. He mutters something about her being lonely and sad and scared, and he notices that Street’s lips go thin, but he doesn’t say anything, because as far as he knows, it passes for the truth.

 

Months ago, she’d told him to stop drinking, and he did it without even thinking, because she’d wanted him to, and he played better football than he ever had in his entire life. He owes her as much as he loves her and that’s a whole hell of a lot.

 

She finally seems to get it when he isn’t saying anything at all, and her eyes widen and her lips part, and she looks like she’s just seen a ghost, which he can’t understand at all. But he doesn’t like that look, and so he pulls her away from the bonfire, towards the parking lot, closer to the truck and his comfort zone.

 

 _You all right, Lyla?_ He asks when he manages to drag her away from the crowds and the people, and they can both breathe a little easier. She says yes, but she’s shaking her head, and he laughs a little, because she looks so sweet and confused, and he can’t help it, he feels alive when he’s with her.

 

 _I’m-I’m Okay;_ she says after a long moment, but she’s not looking at him, but out at her cheerleading friends, laughing and drinking and dancing on the other side of the fire. He knows that they’re looking and he doesn’t care.

 

She can feel their gazes as if they’re clawing into her skin.

 

 _Do you want to go back there?_ He asks, even though she’s not looking any better than she was a minute ago, when he tore her away. He wonders if he did the right thing, and if she’s really Okay, or if she’s just saying so, and how he can make her better without cluing her in on just how much he cares.

 

 _You weren’t having fun._ She says, and she’s pushing a stray strand of hair away from her face, and tucking it behind her ear, and it takes every ounce of willpower he has not to pull her towards him and kiss her.

 

 _If you were, we can go back. Not-not that we’re here together or anything._ He hates that he has to clarify it. That he _is_ clarifying it, and that he can’t stop himself from doing so. He hates that he’s also reverted to stuttering. 

 

He hasn’t stuttered since he was seven years old.

 

 _Or I can come back, and pick you up later… or something;_ his voice cracks again, and kind of he wants to die.

 

 _No, Tim, it’s Okay, we can leave now;_ she says, and she’s surprised that it’s so easy. She can feel their eyes on them across the parking lot. She can feel them, and she knows that they’ll talk, but summer’s almost here, and soon she’ll be gone, and she doesn’t really much care about what they’re saying anyway.

 

He looks surprised at her words, but he doesn’t say anything. For a second, she thinks that she’s wrong; that he doesn’t love her, but then he smiles, and it lights up his whole face really, and she knows.

 

And maybe, she realizes as he’s unlocking the truck (her side her first, as always), that maybe she can love him too.


End file.
